“All passengers and all members of the crew except lookouts on duty will
assemble immediately in Saloon Three to discuss a possible immediate rescue.”
The subject being one of paramount interest, it was a matter of minutes until the
full complement of two hundred men and women were in the main saloon, clinging to
hastily rigged hand lines, closely packed before the raised platform upon which were
King and Czuv, wired together with the peculiar Callistonian harnesses. To most of the
passengers, familiar with the humanity of three planets, the appearance of the stranger
brought no surprise; but many of them stared in undisguised amazement at his childish
body, his pale, almost colorless skin, his small, weak legs and arms, and his massive
head.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Captain King opened the meeting. “I introduce to you
Captain Czuv, of the scout cruiser Bzarvk, of the only human race now living upon the
fourth large satellite of Jupiter, which satellite we know as Callisto. I am avoiding their
own names as much as possible, because they are almost unpronounceable in English
or Interplanetarian. This device that you see connecting us is a Callistonian thought
transformer, by means of which any two intelligent beings can converse without
language. Our situation is peculiar, and in order that you may understand fully what lies
ahead of us, the captain will now speak to you, through me— that is, what follows will
be spoken by Captain Czuv, of the Bzarvk, but he will be using my vocal organs.
“Friends from distant Tellus,” King’s voice went on, almost without a break, “I
greet you. I am glad, for your sake as well as our own, that our vessel was able to
destroy the hexan ship holding you captive, and whose crew would have killed you all
as soon as they had landed your vessel and had read your minds. I regret bitterly that
we can do so little for you, for only the representatives of a human civilization being
exterminated by a race of highly intelligent monsters can fully realize how desirable it is
for all the various races of humanity to assist and support each other. In order that you
may understand the situation it is necessary that I delve at some length into ancient
history, but we have ample time. In about . . .” he broke off, realizing that the two races
had no thought in common in the measure of time.
“One-half time of rotation of Great Planet upon axis ?” flashed from Czuv’s brain,
and “About five hours,” King’s mind flashed back.
“It will be about five hours before any steps can be taken, so that I feel justified in
using a brief period in explanation. In the evolution of the various forms of life upon
Callisto, two genera developed intelligence far ahead of all others.” One genus was the
human, as you and I; the other the hexan. This creature, happily unknown to you of the
planets nearer our common sun, is the product of an entirely different evolution. It is a
six-limbed animal, with a brain equal to our own—one perhaps in some ways superior to
our own. They have nothing in common with humanity, however; they have few of our
traits and fewer of our mental processes. Even we who have fought them so long can
scarcely comprehend the chambers of horror that are their minds. Even were I able to
paint a sufficiently vivid picture with words, you of Earth could not begin to understand
their utter ruthlessness and inhumanity, even among themselves. You would believe
that I was lying, or that my viewpoint was warped. I can say only that I hope most
sincerely that none of you will ever get better acquainted with them.
“Ages ago, then, the human and the hexan developed upon all four of the major
satellites of the Great Planet, which you know as Jupiter, and upon the north polar
region of Jupiter itself. By what means the two races came into being upon worlds so
widely separated in space we know not—we only know it to be the fact. Human life,
however, could not long endure upon Jupiter. The various human races, after many
attempts to meet conditions of life there by variations in type, fell before the hexans;
who, although very small in size upon the planet, thrived there amazingly. Upon the
three outer satellites humanity triumphed, and many hundreds of cycles ago the hexans
of those satellites were wiped out, save for an occasional tribe of savages of low
intelligence who lived in various undesirable portions of the three worlds. For ages then
there was peace upon Callisto. Here is the picture at that time—upon Jupiter the
hexans; upon lo hexans and humans, waging a ceaseless and relentless war of mutual
extermination; upon the three outer satellites humanity in undisturbed and unthreatened
peace. Five worlds, each ignorant of life upon any other.
“As I have said, the hexans of Jupiter were, and are, diabolically intelligent.
Driven probably by their desire to see what lay beyond their atmosphere of eternal
cloud, to the penetration of which their eyesight was attuned, they first perfected the
space-ship; and effected a safe landing, first upon the barren, airless moonlet nearest
them, and then upon fruitful lo. There they made common cause with the hexans
against the humans, and in a space of time Ionian humanity ceased to exist. Much
traffic and interbreeding followed between the hexans of Jupiter and those of lo,
resulting in time in a race intermediate in size between the parent stocks and equally at
home in the widely variant air pressures and gravities of planet and satellite. Soon their
astronomical instruments revealed the cities of Europa to their gaze, and as soon as
they discovered that the civilization of Europa was human they destroyed it utterly, with
the insatiable blood lust that is their heritage.
“In the meantime the human civilizations of Ganymede and Callisto had also
developed instruments of power. Observing the cities upon the other satellites, many
scientists studied intensively the problem of space navigation, and finally there was
some commerce between the two outer satellites at favorable times. Finally, vessels
were also sent to lo and to Europa, but none of them returned. Knowing then what to
expect, Ganymede and Callisto joined forces and prepared for war. But our science, so
long attuned to the arts of peace, had fallen behind lamentably in the devising of more
and ever more deadly instruments of destruction. Ganymede fell, and in her fall we read
our own doom. Abandoning our cities, we built anew underground. Profiting from
lessons learned full bloodily upon Ganymede, we resolved to prolong the existence of
the human race as long as possible.
“The hexans were, and are, masters of the physical sciences. They command
the spectrum in a way undreamed of. Their detectors reveal etheric disturbances at
unbelievable distances, and they have at their beck and call forces of staggering
magnitude. Therefore in our cities is no electricity save that which is wired, shielded,
and grounded; no broadcast radio; no source whatever of etheric disturbances save
light—and our walls are fields of force which we believe to be impenetrable to any
searching frequency capable of being generated. Now I am able to picture to you the
present.
“We are the last representatives of the human race in the Jovian planetary
system. Our every trace upon the surface has been obliterated. We are hiding in our
holes in the ground, coming out at night by stealth so that our burrows shall not be
revealed to the hexans. We are fighting for time in which our scientists may learn the
secrets of power— and fearing, each new day, that the enemy may have so perfected
their systems of rays that they can detect ‘us and destroy us, even in our underground
and heavily shielded retreats, by means of forces even more incomprehensible than
those they are now employing.
“Therefore, friends, you see how little we are able to do for you—we, a race
fighting for our very existence and doomed to extinction save for a miracle. We cannot
take you to Callisto, for it is besieged by the hexans and the driving forces of your
lifeboats, practically broadcast as they are, would be detected and we should all be
destroyed long before we could reach safety. Captain King and I have pondered long,
and have been able to see only one course of action. We are drifting at constant
velocity, using no power, and with all save the most vitally necessary machinery at rest.
Thus only may we hope to avoid detection during the next two hours. Our present
course will take us very close to Europa, which the hexans believe to be, like
Ganymede, entirely devoid of civilized life. Its original humanity was totally destroyed,
and all its civilized hexans are finding shelter from our torpedoes upon Jupiter until we
of Callisto shall likewise have been annihilated. The temperature of Europa will suit you.